Primary Teachers at Work (The Teaching as Work Project)

PRIMARY TEACHERS AT WORK

The first part of this book charts and analyses 3,283 working days of 326 primary school teachers in the period between 1990 and 1992. It shows how they spent their working lives, the nature of the curriculum they taught, and analyses their work into five main categories: teaching, preparation, administration, professional development and other activities. It includes teachers in both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. The second part comments on the findings, relating them to issues of school management and curriculum manageability and looks at how the idea of ‘conscientiousness’ among primary teachers has led to their exploitation. Both authors teach at the University of Warwick, where R.J. Campbell is Professor of Education and S.R.St.J.Neill is Lecturer in Education.

THE TEACHING AS WORK PROJECT Edited by R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill, both of the University of Warwick

The last decade has seen the introduction of new educational policies affecting the working conditions of teachers, the management of schools, the curriculum and its assessment, and relationships between teachers and their employers. What changes, if any, have these new policies brought into the work of teachers? At Warwick University, the Teaching As Work Project, directed by Professor Jim Campbell and Dr Sean Neill, has recorded and analysed nearly 7,000 working days from over 700 teachers over the period 1990 to 1992 in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands. The research provides a detailed picture of how the teachers spend their time on work, both on and off the school premises, which the authors then analyse by reference to national policy, to issues of school management and to concepts of teacher professionalism. The results of the Teaching As Work Project are published in three volumes: PRIMARY TEACHERS AT WORK R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill SECONDARY TEACHERS AT WORK R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill THE MEANING OF INFANT TEACHERS’ WORK L.Evans, A.Packwood, S.R.St.J.Neill and R.J.Campbell

PRIMARY TEACHERS AT WORK

R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill

London and New York

First published 1994 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1994 R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Campbell, R.J. Primary teachers at work/R.J.Campbell and S.R.St.J.Neill. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Elementary school teachers—Great Britain. I. Neill, S.R.St.J. (Sean Rupert St.John), 1945– . II. Title. LB1776.4.G7C36 1994 372.11’00941–dc20 93–44325 CIP ISBN 0-415-08862-3 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-08863-1 (pbk) ISBN 0-203-03871-1 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-17802-5 (Glassbook Format)

CONTENTS

List of illustrations Foreword Acknowledgements

vii xi xii Part I

1 TEACHERS AT WORK: IMAGES AND REALITY

3

2 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PARTICIPATING TEACHERS

21

3 TOTAL TIME ON WORK

40

4 TEACHING AND THE CURRICULUM

63

5 PREPARATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

83

6 ADMINISTRATION AND OTHER ACTIVITIES

100

7 VARIATIONS IN WORKING PATTERNS

118

Part II 8 THE MANAGEMENT OF TEACHERS’ TIME IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

155

9 TEACHER TIME AND CURRICULUM MANAGEABILITY

175

10 PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHING UNDER IMPOSED CHANGE: SOME CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEORISING v

203

CONTENTS

11 THE DILEMMA OF TEACHER CONSCIENTIOUSNESS

215

APPENDIX I METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS APPENDIX II QUESTIONNAIRE APPENDIX III RECORD OF TEACHER TIME

225 229 234

Bibliography Index

235 244

vi

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES 1.1

Framework for time analysis from the perspective of the individual teacher 1.2 Codes for the Record of Teacher Time 1.3 Record of Teacher Time (ROTT) 3.1 Sample 2 (Infant) 3.2 Sample 3 (Infant and Junior) 3.3 Sample 4 (Infant and Junior) 3.4a Distribution of time, 1991 3.4b Distribution of time, 1971 5.1 Sample 4: total Preparation 7.1 ROTT (Vivienne) 7.2 ROTT (Bridie) 7.3 ROTT (Christine)

9 11 14 48 48 48 52 52 90 145 147 149

TABLES 1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8

Number of teachers in each sample, data collection times, days recorded and Key Stage of teachers Sex, age, and length of teaching experience The professional context Item Q1P7: number of pupils registered in class Item Q1P8: age composition of class National curriculum assessment arrangements and non-contact time Time spent collaboratively Responsibilities for co-ordinating Implementing the national curriculum vii

17 23 24 27 27 28 29 31 32

ILLUSTRATIONS

2.9

Item Q2P5: reasonable hours for non-directed time 2.10 Typicality of the recorded period 2.11 Item Q2P7: number of employing authorities 3.1 Mean time on work overall for four samples (hours per week) 3.2 Mean minima and maxima time on total work for three samples (1991) (hours per week) 3.3 Time spent on five main categories, expressed in hours and as percentages of the total time on work 3.4 Comparison of time distribution for Sample 4 with ‘meetings’ and ‘reading’ included in (a) professional development and (b) administration/preparation 3.5 Total time on and off school premises (three samples) 3.6 Non-directed time (in hours per week) assuming 33 hours for directed time (three samples) 3.7 Time spent on work: weekdays and weekends (hours per week) 4.1 Teaching time per week for four samples 4.2 Time on teaching by Key Stage (Sample 4) 4.3 Teaching time on different subjects for four samples (hours per week) 4.4 Teaching time of Year 2 teachers (Samples 2 and 4) 4.5 Time spent teaching English, by school type 4.6 Time spent teaching mathematics, by school type 4.7 Time spent teaching science, by school type 4.8 Proportions of time recorded as spent on different aspects of teaching: (a) time spent as a percentage of total hours spent teaching; (b) time spent as a percentage of sum of individual subjects 4.9 Time spent on teacher assessment, by school type 5.1 Time spent on Preparation, broken down by sub-category for four samples (hours per week) 5.2 Time spent on Preparation, broken down by sub-category for KS1 and KS2 teachers (hours per week) (Sample 4) 5.3 Time spent at weekends and during weekdays on preparation (Sample 4) 5.4 Time spent on Preparation, broken down by sub-category, on and off school premises (Sample 4) (hours per week) viii

34 35 36 44 47 50

56 58 58 59 65 66 67 74 77 77 77

79 80 84

86 87

88

ILLUSTRATIONS

5.5 5.6

6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.2

7.3

7.4 7.5

7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14

Time spent on professional development by each sample (hours per week) Minutes per day spent on professional development by teachers with and without Year 2 children in their class (Sample 2: Spring term 1991) Time spent on administration overall by four samples Time spent on each sub-category of administration by four samples (hours per week) (rank order in brackets) Non-contact time allocated (Sample 4) Time spent on other activities by four samples (hours per week) Time on work overall by Year 2 and non-Year 2 teachers (Sample 2) (hours per week) Mean daily time on work, in hours, by teachers with Year 2 children, and teachers without Year 2 children in class Mean daily minutes on aspects of professional development by teachers with and without Year 2 children in class Mean daily minutes on aspects of preparation by teachers with and without Year 2 children in class Mean daily time (hours) on aspects of teaching with and without Year 2 children in class on weekdays (Sample 2) Mean daily time (hours) on aspects of teaching for Year 2 teachers (n=65) in Sample 4 Sample 4: number of teachers per term Total time (hours per day) spent on work, by term (all teachers) Total time (hours per day) spent on work, by term (infants) Time on teaching (hours per weekday), by term (all teachers) Time on teaching (hours per weekday), by term (juniors) Time on teaching (hours per weekday), by term (infants) Time on preparation (hours per day), by term (all teachers) Time on preparation (hours per day), by term (juniors) ix

97

98 101 102 111 116 119

120

121 122

124 126 127 128 128 129 129 129 131 131

ILLUSTRATIONS

7.15 Time on preparation (hours per day), by term (infants) 7.16 Time on administration (minutes per weekday), by term (all teachers) 7.17 Time on administration (minutes per weekday), by term (juniors) 7.18 Time on administration (minutes per weekday), by term (infants) 7.19 Time on professional development (minutes per day), by term (all teachers) 7.20 Time on professional development (minutes per day), by term (juniors) 7.21 Time on professional development (minutes per day), by term (infants) 7.22 Time on other activities (minutes per day), by term 7.23 Time on work by three individual teachers (hours) 9.1 Perceived adequacy of time devoted to subjects in Key Stage 1 teachers’ classes, 1992 (n=97) 9.2 Teaching time by curriculum subjects 9.3 Notional time expectations (per week) for Key Stage 1 teachers 9.4 Data for the 1992 sample 9.5 National curriculum at Key Stage 2 (September 1992) 9.6 Key Stage 2: notional hours and percentages of different subjects 9.7 Key Stage 2 teaching: time spent in 1991 11.1 Reasonable hours for non-directed time

x

131 133 134 134 135 136 137 138 143 184 185 187 191 195 196 197 216

FOREWORD

This book reports and analyses the work of primary teachers during the period when the educational changes associated with the Education Reform Act 1988, and particularly changes in curriculum and assessment, were being implemented. It attempts to chronicle the impact of the changes on primary teachers’ patterns of work by examining the time they spent working, and the work activities upon which they spent time, mostly in the calendar year 1991. The book is in two parts. Part I provides the objective evidence, drawing on records of 3,283 working days from 326 primary teachers in 54 local education authorities. We analyse our evidence by drawing on other studies and the policy framework within which the teachers were working. We have attempted to achieve neutrality in this part of the book, both in the way the data are presented and in the way they are analysed. In Part II we provide four essays on issues of policy, management and theory arising from the evidence in Part I. These essays are wider-ranging than the evidence, but are disciplined by it. A subtext of all these essays is the issue of teacher professionalism during a period of imposed curriculum change.

xi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We owe a debt of gratitude to many individuals and agencies, which we would like to record here. The research was funded by two agencies. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (previously known as the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association) funded a longitudinal study of infant (Key Stage 1) teachers, part of the data from which contributed to the evidence in this book. The Association of Education Committees Trust funded a year-long study of primary teachers (both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2), all the data from which contributed to the evidence in this book. Without the funds from both these sources, the research could not have been carried out, and we are extremely grateful to them both. Sheila Dainton, Assistant Secretary of ATL, has been a constant source of encouragement, ideas and critical commentary; and our colleagues at Warwick, especially members of the Policy Analysis Unit, Linda Evans, Ros Goodyear, Dr David Halpin, Dr Ann Lewis, Martin Merson, Angie Packwood and Professor John Tomlinson, have contributed helpful comments and criti-cisms of various chapters in draft. Professor Robin Alexander of Leeds University and Colin Richards, HMI, of Ofsted have helped develop our thinking about the relationship between policy and practice. To all of these we owe an intellectual debt. The data were analysed by means of a program specially written for us by Keith Halstead of the Computing Services Unit at Warwick University, where the data were prepared and processed for us with great patience and care. Ian Liddell advised us on statistical treatment. We are especially pleased to record our thanks to them. Sheila Lucas, our research unit secretary, processed our words efficiently and with good humour. A special word of thanks to her. xii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT0S

Finally, of course, the 326 anonymous teachers who took the time, whilst under considerable pressure themselves, to provide us with our evidence, need our thanks. We hope the book recognises the nature of their work and goes some way to enabling the public to understand it better. R.J.Campbell S.R.St.J.Neill Warwick University

xiii

Part I

1 TEACHERS AT WORK Images and reality

Our ideas of what teachers do when they are at work may be conditioned to a large extent by the memories of our own experiences of teachers when we were pupils. We think of teachers as having fairly short hours of work, roughly con-terminous with their pupils’ day, and rather long holidays by comparison with other workers in service industries. Moreover, teachers are thought to have it easy in another sense: the nature of the job itself is considered undemanding, particularly when young children are involved (Rumbold 1988), and only semi-professional in status (Etzioni 1969). The image of teaching as a nine-to-three job, and the adage that, ‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’, are deeply imprinted on the national, and perhaps the international, consciousness. In England and Wales, the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act 1987 did little to dispel this image. It specified that teachers could be required to work on not more than 195 days a year, of which 190 were days on which they could be required to teach pupils. They might be required to work at the direction of their head teacher for a maximum of 1,265 hours a year. Colloquially known as ‘directed time’, this is equivalent to about 33 hours per week, in an assumed 39-week working year. Any other time spent on work — ‘non-directed time’ —was discretionary in the sense that it was not directed by an employer or superior. It was specified loosely — ‘such additional hours as may be needed to enable them to discharge effectively their professional duties’ (School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document, 1989, para. 36 (1) (f)) —with the consequence that how much time teachers spent on work beyond the directed 1,265 hours would depend upon the strength of either their conscience or their fear of facing classes unprepared. 3

TEACHERS AT WORK

Whether this image has ever been a true reflection of the work of the generality of teachers is uncertain. It has been challenged by the only two sustained observational studies of teachers at work in England. One (Hilsum and Cane 1971) concerned 129 junior teachers and the other (Hilsum and Strong 1978) 201 secondary teachers. Both were conducted in the same English LEA (Surrey), with a meticulous methodology that involved an unrecorded dryrun day for familiarisation, and detailed observation of each teacher on one or two working days, randomly allocated by the researchers and spread across a whole year. The observational data were supplemented by self-report records covering evenings, weekends and holidays. The data were analysed by the use of two classification systems. First the overall time spent on work was divided three ways, into teaching sessions, breaks, and out-of-school. These were referred to as ‘C’-time, ‘S’-time and ‘O’-time respectively. Second, within each of these time-frames, the teachers’ work was broken down into fifty-five (primary) and seventy-seven (secondary) different activities, which were then grouped into nine main categories: teaching, preparation, consultation, school administration, control/supervision, mechanical/clerical tasks, pastoral, private and unrecorded. An important objective of this categorisation, given the value-laden nature of education, was its attempt to establish and maintain neutrality in description. It described what a teacher was doing at a given time—not why or how effectively it was being done. Further reference to the work of Hilsum and his colleagues is provided at relevant points throughout this book. There are two main points to notice at this stage. First, the belief that teaching was a nine-to-three job was shown to be false for the teachers concerned. These studies revealed that, in 1969, Surrey junior school teachers were working for 44.5 hours per week in term time, 42 per cent of which was work in the teachers’ ‘own’ time (i.e. out of contact with pupils). For the secondary teachers in 1974 the term-time working week was 46.75 hours, 38 per cent of which was in their ‘own’ time. Second, Hilsum and his colleagues made the point that, if all that is involved in the true nature of teachers’ work was to be understood, focusing exclusively or principally on classrooms was inappropriate because much of the work was conducted away from classrooms: 4

TEACHERS AT WORK

Teachers have often protested that their work outside the classroom goes unrecognised, and that the image of the teacher held by many outside the profession is far too narrow, in that he is thought of primarily as a practitioner in a classroom. Our figures show that less than three-fifths of the teacher’s working day was spent in direct contact with classes; 15 percent of the day was spent in school but without class contact, and a quarter of the day was spent entirely outside school hours. These facts lend weight to the suggestion that an understanding and appreciation of the teacher’s role as a professional person will not come from a study of the classroom alone: his work and interaction with pupils in the classroom setting may be an important, perhaps the most important, aspect of his professional life, but it must be seen in the wider context of the totality of his work. (Hilsum and Cane 1971, p. 91)

THE PURPOSE OF THE WARWICK RESEARCH In the first chapter of their book on junior teachers’ work, Hilsum and Cane (1971) identified a number of reasons why their research was needed. It would: 1 Contribute to understanding teacher effectiveness; 2 Correct false impressions of teaching; 3 Help break down the isolation of teachers from each other. In addition, there were groups with an interest in knowing about teachers’ work, for example the teachers’ associations, teacher training institutions, employers, ratepayers, and parents of pupils at school. We accept these justifications for our research also, but would want to add three others. First, the findings of Hilsum and his colleagues need to be updated. In the 15 to 20 years since their studies were conducted, there has been a series of major legislative changes in education in England and Wales which are widely thought to have had direct impact upon teachers’ work. They include the Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Act 1987 and the Education Reform Act 1988. The former altered teachers’ conditions of employment, whilst the latter has led to changes in curriculum and assessment, and the basis 5

TEACHERS AT WORK

upon which schools are funded. Other major innovations have included changes to secondary examinations, especially at GCSE, and to post-16 education and training. Following the 1981 Education Act, more pupils with special educational needs have been placed in ordinary schools. Earmarked grants for teachers’ In-service training, and the development of teams of advisory teachers to support schools, have also affected teachers’ work in the last decade. We need evidence about the extent and nature of the impact of all these changes upon teaching as work in the late twentieth century. Second, public discussion of the education service has become highly charged politically in the 15 or so years since a speech by the then Prime Minister, James Callaghan, in 1976. A series of papers and reports since then (e.g. Prais and Wagner 1985, White Paper 1985, DES 1990a, Cato and Whetton 1990, Alexander, Rose and Woodhead 1992) has been used to promote recurring claims that the education system in England and Wales is in a crisis, with standards in decline (e.g. Cato and Whetton 1990) and that part of the reason lies in the way in which teachers do their work. When Hilsum and his colleagues reviewed the literature on teaching as work, they found that, although there were many studies of classrooms, there was no large-scale study examining the total work of teachers (see Hilsum and Cane 1971, pp. 16–17 for details). We have similarly found that, although there has been an interest in teachers as workers and professionals (e.g. Lawn and Grace 1987, Ozga 1987, Ozga and Lawn 1988, Connell 1984), in teachers’ careers (e.g. Acker 1989, 1990), and occupational stress amongst teachers (e.g. Dunham 1984, Kyriacou 1980), there has been no follow-up study to the research by Hilsum and his colleagues, despite its importance. It is therefore difficult to know whether the way teachers conduct their work is relevant to the alleged crisis. Is ‘teacher bashing’ a fair attribution of fault for the problems in the education system, or a version of ‘blaming the victims’ (Ryan 1971) of an under-funded enterprise? We believe that public discussion of teaching should be disciplined by evidence and reasoned argument, and see our research as a contribution to such discussion. The third reason for our research is that the way teachers spend their time as workers is important from two policy perspectives: school management at the local level, and government policies at the national level. Teachers’ time is the most valuable and most expensive of a school’s resources, teachers’ salaries typically 6

TEACHERS AT WORK

accounting for some 70 per cent of a school’s budget. How teachers’ working time is used raises questions of a ‘value for money’ kind for school management. For example, what proportion of their working day do teachers spend on low-level tasks that do not require the skills of relatively well-paid graduates? The research also has implications for national policies, especially on the recruitment, supply and retention of teachers. For example, if teachers spend much of their time on tasks they find unattractive or unrewarding, or if they spend what they see as too much of their ‘own’ time on work, to the detriment of their personal and family life, there may be problems of teacher retention in the medium or long term. Policy changes that increase the time spent on aspects of the job which good teachers find demotivating are likely to be counter-productive. OUR RESEARCH APPROACH Our research used a similar concept of work to that employed by Hilsum and his colleagues (Hilsum and Cane 1971, Hilsum and Strong 1978), in that we took account of the totality of teachers’ work, not just their time in classrooms or in schools. Also, like them, we attempted to establish and maintain neutrality in our descriptions. However, because of the changes in teachers’ conditions of work and the implications of the Education Reform Act 1988, outlined above, and for logistical reasons, there were some substantial differences in our conceptual framework and in our methodology. Conceptualising teachers’ work We adopted three frameworks to help us conceptualise teachers’ work for purposes of carrying out the research. In the first and most basic, we assumed that there were two principal dimensions in teachers’ work: 1 The amount of time spent; 2 The activities upon which time is spent.

7

TEACHERS AT WORK

It can be seen that time is central to our analysis of teachers’ work. If we were investigating most manual workers this point would be obvious to the point of truism. Their work starts and stops at fixed and inflexible times, often marked by clocking-in devices—whistles, hooters, bells or other signals. Breaks in work are also precisely timed for these workers, sometimes down to the detail of how long it should take to go to the lavatory. Teachers, however, are part of ‘educated labour’ (Larson 1980), and their time is less obviously subject to overt signals indicating starting, and certainly stopping, times. The pupils’ working day may be signalled by bells, but the teachers’ working day is not. (Even for those parts of the school day, such as break times, where bells signal starts and ends, it is sometimes necessary for heads to hint obliquely but strongly in staffrooms that ‘The children are in’.) Nevertheless time is central to the analysis of their work because, as Hargreaves (1989) argues, time is the fundamental measure by which work is structured and controlled—though, as we indicate later, the British may have a greater affection for measuring productivity by time put in, rather than output, than do their Continental colleagues. A second framework was used to analyse the time spent on work from the perspective of individual teachers. This has five levels, as indicated in Figure 1.1, with the time on each descending level being a sub-set of the one above. It is, to use a different analogy, like a sequence of the pictures of the earth’s surface relayed by satellite, where each picture is of a smaller area, in sharper focus, than the preceding one. Figure 1.1 is simple and rather self-evident, but it has two virtues. Time is usually thought of from the institutional point of view, with regard to the needs of the school and its management (see Bell 1988, Knight 1989 for examples). The framework in Figure 1.1, however, directs us to think about time from the individual point of view and how work fits into the individual’s life overall (see Campbell 1992b for an elaboration of this point). This was important when we examined the impact of work on teachers’ personal lives (see Evans et al. 1994), and identified conflict arising from the differing time demands at Levels 1 and 2. Secondly, the framework does not restrict itself to work in the school day, reflecting, by the inclusion of Level 2, time taken up with work outside it. We were able, therefore, to take two dimensions of teachers’ work into account: ‘visible’ 8

TEACHERS AT WORK

Figure 1.1 Framework for time analysis from the perspective of the individual teacher

work, that is, work that can in principle be seen by parents and other members of the public; and ‘invisible’ work, which is mainly carried on in private (or in professional seclusion on training courses, etc.) and which is not subject to public scrutiny. We have already seen from the work of Hilsum and his colleagues the problem with the public perception of teaching, which is almost entirely confined to the visible aspects of the work, even though the invisible aspects occupy a substantial part of teachers’ working time. The third framework refers to the different activities that teachers engage in when working—the nature of the work on which teachers spend time. It was obviously open to us to adopt Hilsum and his 9

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colleagues’ category system unaltered. This had served their purpose well, and would have enabled us to compare directly our findings with theirs. However, this was not possible, for practical reasons, the main one being that we were gathering data from many more teachers for more days across many LEAs. Our teachers were self-reporting, and were not observed directly. Thus we needed a set of categories that teachers could use, without training or support, for recording their work activities. Trained researchers, using non-participant observation techniques with an agreed schedule and codings, who do not have to concern themselves simultaneously with teaching pupils, can use much more sophisticated and complex systems than teachers are able to do, unaided and untrained. However, we were careful as far as possible to use a system that would permit broad comparison with the findings of Hilsum and his colleagues, since theirs was the only major study available, and it provided the opportunity to examine changes in teachers’ work over time. Our system allows such comparison to be made, within certain limits, and this comparison is made at relevant points in this book. We therefore developed and trialled the coding system shown in Table 1.1. It had 25 sub-categories of activity, which could be analysed separately and could also be collapsed for broad-brush analysis into the five major categories, namely teaching, preparation/marking, administration, professional development, and other activities. Our trials of the coding system suggested that it was comprehensive and yet manageable, and captured most of the common activities of primary teachers’ work. In the event, only one teacher out of the 327 who used the coding system found it impossible to use in an appropriate way. Her return had to be discarded. Three problems and their treatment There were three subsidiary issues that we had to face: location, voluntariness, and work carried out during school vacations. The first of these, concerning the place where teachers carried out their work, is a relatively trivial matter. Nonetheless, the problem is more complex than might be supposed from the way it was treated by Hilsum and his 10

TEACHERS AT WORK

Figure 1.2 Codes for the Record of Teacher Time 11

TEACHERS AT WORK

colleagues, who divided the time into work at school and work in teachers’ own time. Like them, we wanted to know when work was carried out on school premises and off them, and our recording system allowed that information to emerge. Work off school premises, however, does not simply mean at home. It could also include travelling to, and attending, an In-service session at a teachers’ centre, following a course at a college or university in the evening, visiting another school for purposes of liaison during the day, preparing for a class visit to a museum or field site by the teacher visiting it in advance, taking the class off the school premises for an educational visit, going on a residential weekend, or attending a conference. To deal with this, we made an arbitrary but common-sense decision. If teachers were off school premises but working with pupils during the timetabled school day, as when taking a class to the local swimming pool, or to a nearby castle for a history session, it was counted as being on the school premises. The reason for this was that we wished to include such time in the category of normal teaching, and to separate it from work done with pupils outside timetabled time on residential visits, trips with sports teams, etc. In this way we would avoid arriving at a total figure for teaching which was less than the actual time spent on teaching as commonly understood. We also had to deal with the problem of voluntary work— the fact that some teachers attend courses or conferences in their own time without being directed to do so. Should we count this as work or not? The reasons for voluntary attendance at courses and conferences are varied. Some teachers are invited (but specifically not directed) to do so by heads or LEA advisers, as part of In-service training on the national curriculum, for example; others go out of interest, or in pursuit of a further professional qualification. Again, we decided to include these voluntary activities in the total of time spent on work, because it seemed reasonable to consider them as part of the professional development of teachers. They were the kind of activities that were work-related in the sense that, had our respondents not been teachers, they would not have been involved in them. Also, In-service training is more often ‘directed’ than used to be the case before the 1988 Education Reform Act. In case this is thought to overstate the total time on work, we have collected and reported the data in ways that enable the time spent on such 12

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activities to be disaggregated from the total, if it is considered more appropriate to do so. However, if all time spent on such activities were discounted, there would be some under-estimate of the total work, since attendance at courses is sometimes at the direction of the headteacher and, when it is, should obviously be included in any count of time spent on work. The third issue concerns vacation time, when some teachers do school work for some of the time, but presumably do not work such long hours as during term time. The issue becomes significant when attempting to arrive at an annual figure for the time teachers spend on work. Hilsum and his colleagues dealt with this by getting their samples of teachers to self-report on days in the vacations, chosen by the researchers. In our research we had no direct evidence about work during vacations. To arrive at an annual figure, therefore, there were two possible approaches: to assume that the vacation hours worked by our teachers were similar to those worked by the teachers studied by Hilsum and his colleagues, or to assume that our teachers did no work at all during vacations. Both approaches could have been used in our analyses, but the annual figures in this book are extrapolations of the term-time figures, using only the latter of the above two assumptions. METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES Appendix I examines methodological issues in detail, but it may be helpful to outline two issues at this point. Recording teachers’ work The teachers were not observed directly. They kept a record of the time spent on work for either seven or 14 consecutive days, using a specially devised ‘Record of Teacher Time (ROTT)’ (see Appendix III). This required them to record the time they spent in three-minute segments, running from 07.00 hours to 24.00 hours. They thus recorded weekends as well as weekdays, and evenings as well as day-time. The record also enabled the teachers to differentiate between time spent on work on school premises and off them. Figure 1.2 shows one day’s record from one of our teachers, and is followed by a commentary by us, to 13

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Figure 1.3 Record of Teacher Time (ROTT) 14

TEACHERS AT WORK

illustrate the recording and coding system. It provides a day in the working life of a primary teacher in 1991.

Commentary The teacher starts work at school at 8.30, when she organises some resources (PO) until the pupils enter class and she registers them and organises their move (////) to the hall for assembly and the act of worship (AW). At about 9.20 she moves the pupils back to their classroom (////) and then teaches them English (TE) and science (TS) for an hour. Then she supervises the children as they put on their coats for playtime (AS) and has a coffee break free of work (AB) for about 18 minutes. Then she moves the children to another location in the school (////) to teach English (TE) for 18 minutes, perhaps to watch a TV programme. Then she returns the pupils to the classroom (////) and spends the remaining 48 minutes teaching English (TE) and mathematics until midday. She has a break free of work (AB) for 45 minutes, and then does some work in the break time (AF) until it is time for the afternoon registration (////). Then she teaches a non-core subject (or subjects) (TO) for just over an hour. She has a further break free of work (AB) for 18 minutes, and then continues teaching non-core subject(s) (TO) for 21 minutes. She concludes by teaching English (TE), probably a story-telling session, for 18 minutes. Then she moves the pupils to their cloakroom area (////) and supervises them (AS) whilst they are being collected by their parents. She then attends a staff meeting, or a meeting of some other kind (IS), for nearly an hour, still on the school premises. She does no work, so no entry is made, between 16.30 and 17.00. Then she travels to an In-service course (IT) and enters the codes in Column B to show that she was away from school premises. Then she attends an In-service course (IN) until 18.15, then travels home from the course (IT) for 15 minutes. She does no work, so makes no entry, until 20.15 when she spends 45 minutes in lesson planning (PR) and professional reading (IR), probably indicating that she is reading national curriculum orders to plan her lessons. Then she spends 6 minutes on an activity that she cannot code (OA), probably filling in this diary record. 15

TEACHERS AT WORK

A summary analysis of this day’s work is shown overleaf. The sum of individual elements amounts to 666 minutes (11.1 hrs) because at some times (e.g., IR+PR at 20.15–21.00) simultaneous working (i.e., two categories at the same time) occurred. This is not double-counted in arriving at the total time on work. We draw attention to the fact that teaching accounted for only 36.5 per cent of the total time spent on work. Our samples Our sampling was initially unconventional, in that it started with a commission from a teachers’ union, the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association (now known as the Association of Teachers and Lecturers), to undertake a small pilot study into the use of teachers’ time at Key Stage 1 in Spring term 1990, as the national curriculum was being introduced. This study, using mainly volunteer union members, was published (Campbell and Neill 1990) by the Association and led to seven further projects, two funded from separate sources, with differing samples and data collection times. All the projects were directed by us and based in the Policy Analysis Unit in the Education Department at Warwick University. These projects generated the evidence upon which the current series of books has been based. Table 1.2 shows the details of the samples of primary teachers used in this book, together with the time of the data collection in each case. It should be noted that ‘National’ in Table 1.2 means that the sample was provided as a result of a national invitation to members of the teachers’ union sponsoring the research. Although the samples are not nationally representative in the sense that they have been selected randomly from the whole population of teachers, they comprised teachers from 54 LEAs out of 104 LEAs in England and Wales. In addition, primary 16

TEACHERS AT WORK

Table 1.1 Number of teachers in each sample, data collection times, days recorded and Key Stage of teachers

teachers from a Channel Island Education Department were also involved. Samples 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 comprised primary teachers, with 1, 2, and 5 being restricted to Key Stage 1 teachers. Samples 2 and 5 are sub-samples of Sample 1. Sample 4 was drawn from an approach to every primary school in three Midlands LEAs. Overall, in the studies of both primary and secondary school teachers, we have been drawing on a data base of records of over 6,700 working days from 783 teachers in 88 LEAs. The material in this book uses a data base of records of 3,283 working days from 326 primary school teachers in the 54 LEAs. The LEAs were in England and Wales and, in addition, teachers from the Channel Island Department mentioned above. Teachers in Scotland were not represented in our research. The research methodology is not without its weaknesses, as we discuss in Appendix I, but it is the largest empirical data set of its kind, as far as we know. By comparison, the combined primary and secondary studies by Hilsum and his colleagues, though methodologically more refined, drew on observations of 398 school days, and self-reports of 545 days at the weekends or in vacations. These were from 340 primary and secondary school teachers in 138 schools in one English authority. They did not include Key Stage 1 (infant) teachers. 17

TEACHERS AT WORK

THE EVIDENCE FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE The purpose of our research was not merely to count the hours that teachers spent on work and analyse the different activities upon which they spent them, intrinsically interesting though that has been. As we noted above, the 1980s was a period of substantial and complex change in education, and we wished to make connections, where we considered it possible and legitimate, between the data on teachers’ time on work, and the policy context in which they were working. For this reason, the teachers completed a questionnaire, (see Appendix II). The responses to the questionnaire (see Chapter 2) provided evidence about teachers’ perceptions of the national curriculum, non-directed time, and other aspects of policy. It also provided information on their professional biographies (e.g. length of teaching experience, salary position), their working conditions (e.g. class size, school type and size, non-contact time, responsibilities), which enabled us to examine a wide range of policy issues, such as the extent to which the national curriculum and its assessment were being implemented, the match between working conditions and teachers’ work, the relationship between time on work and salary, teacher motivation, as well as some issues (for example, the use of non-teaching assistants) which were not directly related to national policies but which had implications for school management. These are examined in Part II of this book. Thus we see the research as producing evidence about the actual or potential effectiveness of some of the major contemporary educational policies. TIME ON WORK: PROBLEMS OF MEANING A final point needs to be made in this introductory chapter. We said earlier that we have attempted to describe teachers’ work using neutral categories, in order to avoid importing judgemental values to the descriptive process. For example, our code TM signifies that the teacher was teaching mathematics, but it says nothing about how well, or with what purpose, the mathematics was being taught or learned. Our code AD signifies that the teacher was mounting a display, but it says nothing about how good the display was, or what purpose the teacher had in mind for it. 18

TEACHERS AT WORK

However, there is a particular problem with the total time spent by teachers on work. In a culture dominated by the Protestant ethic, long hours spent on work are attributed a positive value. Teachers who devote long hours of their own time to their work tend to be seen, and to see themselves, as professionally virtuous. Those who spend relatively little time on their work are often considered professionally deficient. Yet long hours might as easily be taken as a mark of inefficiency; relatively short hours an indication of business-like briskness. (Such cultural differences seem to exist in other occupations. In a study of finance managers, Neale and Mindel (1991) showed that Scandinavians interpreted long hours on work as a sign of incompetence, while British managers thought they revealed loyalty and enthusiasm.) Alternatively, for some teachers, long hours might follow from loneliness, or an arid social life, i.e. from having nothing better to do than fill in time with work; short hours, from a commitment to a full and active social and intellectual life unconnected with work. In teachers’ conferences where our research has been discussed, we have found headteachers loading very strong positive value onto teachers’ spending large amounts of their own time on work. Some have said that they would expect teachers to work up to 70 hours a week, or would not discourage them from doing so. This issue is discussed further in Chapter 8. It is thus easy to slip into the habit of interpreting our findings on the total time teachers spend on work in a value-laden way. We have tried to take account of the issue in three ways. First, we always refer to teachers ‘working long hours’, not ‘working hard’, to stress the neutrality of our description. Second, we included an item on the questionnaire asking the teachers to say what time they thought it was reasonable for them to spend on work, so that we had some evidence about whether the teachers were working longer than they themselves thought was reasonable. Third, we were able to interview a sub-sample (Sample 5 in Table 1.2 above) of the infant teachers about how they interpreted long hours on work, and to obtain the meanings they put upon such hours. This evidence, which is presented in Evans et al. (1994), suggests in general that very long hours were seen as arising directly from central government policies on the curriculum, or from mismanagement at the school level, and were resented. 19

TEACHERS AT WORK

Nevertheless, it is worth concluding by focusing this point in a particularly sharp way. We have much evidence about the amount of time that teachers spend on work; this is provided in Chapters 3 to 6. However, we have no evidence to show that long hours are associated with improved classroom performance, either positively or negatively. Our research did not address this issue. Whether working long hours has a classroom pay-off remains an open question.

20

2 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PARTICIPATING TEACHERS

In this chapter we present detailed information on the teachers who took part in the research. The information is derived from responses to the questionnaire (see Appendix II) that they completed at the end of the seven- or fourteen-day recording period. The questionnaire comprised twenty-three items designed to give information under six broad headings. These were: professional biographies (three items), professional context (four items), working conditions (seven items), teacher perceptions of obstacles (two items), teacher perceptions of time (six items) and employing authority (one item). The content of the questionnaire items was originally created from our knowledge of the research literature and following discussions with the teachers’ association which sponsored the research using Samples 1 and 2. It was tested in discussion with a small group of experienced infant teachers, and used in the pilot study in 1990. In the light of this pilot, minor changes to wording were introduced, and in 1991 three additional items (Q1P4A, Q1P8A and Q2P6) were introduced to provide information shown by the pilot to be relevant to the research. The information generated by the questionnaire was of two kinds: objective data on teachers’ biography and working contexts, such things as age, class size, employing authority, etc., and subjective data embodying teachers’ perceptions. On the questionnaire itself and in the tables that follow, the items asking for objective data are signalled by the prefix ‘Q1’, while items asking for subjective data are signalled by ‘Q2’. The information is presented below separately in raw form for each of the four samples, and then the summed data for Samples 2, 3 and 4 (i.e. all the 1991 teachers) are presented as a percentage. (Sample 1 21

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

was the 1990 pilot, and is excluded from the percentages for this reason, and because the teachers in Sample 2 were a sub-sample of Sample 1.) PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY There were three items concerning teachers’ sex, age and length of teaching experience in the Key Stage in which they were currently teaching. The data are provided in Table 2.1, which shows items Q1P1, Q1P2 and Q1P3. As might be expected in a study of primary school teachers, the vast majority of the participants were women, with only Samples 3 and 4, which covered Key Stage 2 as well as Key Stage 1, containing enough men to allow us to make gender comparisons on workloads. Our teachers were also mature, only 13 per cent of them being under 31 years, and 57 per cent being over 40 years of age. The distribution overall is fairly similar to that in the Primary Staffing Survey (DES 1987) which gave 10 per cent under 30 years, 31 per cent between 30 and 39, 35 per cent between 40 and 49, and 25 per cent aged 50 or over. However, age, especially in the case of women, is not a reliable indicator of experience since many more women than men teachers take a career break in order to bring up young children. As can be seen from Item Q1P3, one in four teachers had less than six, and 45 per cent less than 11 years’ experience of teaching at the relevant Key Stage. There is an obvious difference here between Sample 4 and the other three. Over half of Sample 4 had less than 11 years’ experience, and almost one-third had less than six years’. In the other samples about 70 per cent had over ten years’ experience. Part of the explanation for this difference may be the fact that a much smaller proportion of schools (14 per cent) in Sample 4 catered for a single Key Stage (i.e. were exclusively Junior or Infant schools) and therefore there was more chance that they would have had experience in other Key Stages. There are two main implications of the evidence about professional biography for interpreting the findings of our research. First, the existence of a dominant proportion of women teachers requires a gendered perspective for viewing the long hours spent on work, since many of these teachers will probably also have a disproportionate weight of domestic responsibilities. Second, 22

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.1 Sex, age, and length of teaching experience

findings about the long hours on preparation (in Chapter 5) would be easier to interpret if there was a consistent picture, with the younger or less-experienced teachers spending longer on preparation overall. This was not the case, except in respect of the very young and very inexperienced teachers— those with three or 23

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.2 The professional context

24

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.2 Continued

fewer years’ experience—who spent more time on preparation than other teachers. PROFESSIONAL CONTEXT There were four items here concerning the salary status, the nature of any incentive allowance, the type of school and the size of school. The data are provided in Table 2.2 (Items Q1P4, Q1P4A, Q1P5 and Q1P6). The data on salary status refer to whether or not a teacher had an incentive allowance and, if so, which level of allowance (including deputy headship) it was. The information does not relate to the incremental level within any status. The presentation of data was complicated by the fact that the teachers in Sample 3 were on a slightly different system of allowances to the other teachers. For this reason the percentages are presented, including Sample 3 and excluding Sample 3 (in brackets). The comparison with the national picture, based on allocations in the 1990 Pay and Conditions Report, shows that incentive allowance holders of all kinds were over-represented in our samples (33 per cent nationally, 48 per cent in our sample). This over-representation might be partly explained by the data in Item Q1P4A, where 31 teachers, 24 per cent of those answering, or 13 per cent of Samples 2 and 4 combined (the 25

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

only two samples where this item was used), reported being on temporary incentive allowances. Thus, in terms of salary status alone, our sample is rather atypical, but as we show throughout the study, salary status is not an important predictor of hours on work. The teachers worked in a range of school types, illustrating the considerable diversity in provision in England and Wales. By national comparisons there were more teachers working in first, combined 5–12 and 8–12 schools, mainly because one of the three authorities involved in the largest sample (Sample 4) had most of its schools organised within a first/middle/upper school structure. There was a good spread of schools across all but the smallest two categories of size. National figures given in Alexander, Rose and Woodhead (1992) show that 17 per cent of schools have ninetynine or fewer pupils, and such schools are under-represented in our study even though the total number of teachers working in such small schools (n=22) enables us to make some useful comparisons (see p. 113). The main point, however, is that teachers in small schools in our study tended to work longer hours (‘beyond the bond’, as Tomlinson’s (1990) study of small secondary schools put it) than other teachers, but there are relatively few in our study, and this cannot be the explanation for general high workloads that we found. WORKING CONDITIONS There were seven items concerning teachers’ working conditions: class size, class composition, whether or not there were Year 2 children in the class, non-contact time allocated, time spent working alongside a colleague in the same class, or with a paid non-teaching assistant, and the responsibilities in addition to class teaching held by the teacher. The range of class sizes is typical of schools nationally (DES 1991b, Annual Statistics of Schools) and, in particular, the proportion of classes with more than thirty pupils in them is very similar to the national position in 1991. The Annual Statistics of Schools (DES 1991b, Table A16) showed that 12 per cent of classes comprised fewer than twenty pupils, 66 per cent comprised 21–30 pupils, and 22 per cent were over 31. The average class size was 26.8 pupils. The corresponding 26

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.3 Item Q1P7: number of pupils registered in class

percentages, as can be seen in Item Q1P7, for our teachers were almost identical (10, 67 and 23 per cent). We are not able to calculate a precise average class size from our data but our estimate, taking the mid-point in each class size category, is 26.9. Thus, long hours on work in our sample cannot be attributed to unusually high numbers of teachers with large class sizes. The issue of class size and its relationship to pupil learning is extremely complex and readers are referred to Burstall (1979) and Mortimore and Blatchford (1992). Our evidence is about class size and teacher workload, and we were able to show that class size, within the ranges shown above, did not affect the hours spent on work, or even on preparation (or on marking and recording results). The teachers’ perceptions, however, which we consider below (p. 30), suggest that there is a threshold at Table 2.4 Item Q1P8: age composition of class

27

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

around twenty-eight pupils, beyond which class size becomes named as the most serious obstacle to implementing the national curriculum (see p. 33 below for a fuller discussion of this point). The majority of the classes of our teachers were single age, with a substantial minority of mixed composition, either two or more than two age groupings, as can be seen in Item Q1P8. We do not know whether or not mixed age groupings occurred by deliberate school policy, but the two-plus age groups were all in very small (less than 100 pupils) schools where the schools would have little option about whether the classes should be mixed age. Thirty-seven per cent of the teachers had classes containing Year 2 pupils who, in 1991, undertook national curriculum tests (SATs) and assessment. This item was not included in 1990 and did not apply to Sample 3, but was included in 1991 in Samples 2 and 4 in Table 2.5 National curriculum assessment arrangements and non-contact time

28

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

order to see if we could measure the effect of the national curriculum assessment arrangements on teacher workloads. The details can be seen in Item Q1P8A. The distribution of non-contact time is shown in Item Q1P9. Non-contact time refers to the time formally allocated to teachers, irrespective of whether or not they actually received it in the recording period. Alexander, Rose and Woodhead (1992) claimed that senior staff received more non-contact time than other teachers, which we also found (see p. 111), but it is also clear that more of the Key Stage 1 teachers (70 per cent of Sample 1) had either none, or no more than 30 minutes, than the teachers in the samples combining Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 (11 per cent and 50 per cent respectively). The perspective on our findings about Table 2.6 Time spent collaboratively

29

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

time implied by these data is that those with longer non-contact time are likely but, because of the practice of ‘covering’ for absent colleagues, not certain, to teach for a shorter time in the week than other teachers. We included two items concerning the extent to which teachers worked with other adults, either teaching collaboratively with a teacher colleague or working with a paid non-teaching assistant. The latter definition was intended to exclude the use of voluntary helpers from the replies. The purpose here was to examine the extent of ‘collegial’ working relationships and to see whether there was evidence that working with other adults reduced or increased overall workloads or patterns of work. The data on working alongside a teacher colleague show that there was little joint teaching, with only 15 per cent of teachers teaching jointly for more than two hours a week. Likewise, there was relatively little working time with paid assistants, some 79 per cent of teachers having either no such time or not more than five hours per week. A final issue was the role of curriculum co-ordinator. Since 1985 (see Campbell 1985, ILEA 1985, House of Commons 1986) there has been pressure on classteachers to extend their role to co-ordinating the work in a subject or subjects throughout the whole school, acting as adviser to colleagues. Our evidence shows almost nine out of ten teachers exercising such a role in 1991, with few (mainly young) teachers not having such responsibility. Item Q1P12A illustrates the range of subjects involved for our teachers, and shows some variation in the average number of subjects per teacher, between 1.5 and 2.2. The large number of ‘other’ responsibilities named suggests the practice of allocating responsibility for non-curricular areas (e.g. home—school links, library, etc.) remained significant even as the national curriculum was being introduced in subject format. Our main aim here was to see if co-ordinators worked longer or had a different pattern of work (such as longer time in meetings or In-service training) from others. However, as can be seen, the allocation of responsibilities, irrespective of whether an incentive allowance was held, had gone so far in 1991 that only small numbers of teachers had no designated responsibility. 30

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.7 Responsibilities for co-ordinating

TEACHER PERCEPTIONS OF OBSTACLES TO IMPLEMENTING THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM There were two items here, one concerning the perceived obstacles to curriculum delivery, the other with preferred uses to which 31

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

Table 2.8 Implementing the national curriculum

hypothetical extra teaching resources would be put. The data are given in Table 2.8 (Items Q2P1 and Q2P4). Teachers were given a forced choice item asking, ‘The following list identifies six problems in teachers’ working conditions. Which one do you consider is the most serious obstacle for you in implementing the national curriculum and assessment?’ The list comprised Poor pay; Poorly maintained buildings; Low level of learning resources, materials or equipment; Lack of time; Lack of knowledge/information; Large class size. 32

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TEACHERS

It can be seen that three problems impacting directly onto classroom practice overwhelmingly represented the teachers’ perceptions, with 95 per cent of teachers consistently identifying lack of time, or large class size or learning resources. Lack of time was cited consistently by two-thirds of teachers, with just under one-fifth of teachers citing large class size. When we examined these data set against the actual class size of the teachers, we found that there was a threshold. Although most teachers, irrespective of class size, cited lack of time as the main problem, when class size was above twenty-eight pupils, large class size was cited significantly more often (p